Elle:
Please tell us more about this project „1to100years“, how was this idea born?

Edouard Janssens:
It’s always difficult to isolate precisely the birth of an idea. But I think it was a day when I was walking around the studio, looking at all the portraits already on the walls. There was a lot of different ages. But not all. And then it clicked, why not all ? On the men side and the women side. So this project begun a little like a ‚Let’s do it‘. But it evolves so much after to become a real inside journey into ‚human nature‘.

The first phase of the project was more a question of casting, planning, shooting into the studio. But at the end of the project, I had to shoot around 40 older persons into elder houses, etc…
This was a project into the project… so much richer.

All these people were telling their lives, the meeting were far more richer than the ‚quick photos session into the studio. What was really talking to me during all these shooting days was that I ’saw‘ something common to all the persons, of all ages, I really felt, saw something, because I jumped from for example a little girl of 4 years, then just after a lady of 80 years then a man of 14 then a women of 25 then etc…

So nothing common except what I really deeply felt during these days… something very very very powerful behind everybody eyes and at the same time very very very fragile, afraid, questioning,… I really had the feeling to ‚touch‘ the deep human nature we all have.

When I heard that the European Year 2012 theme was ‚for active ageing and solidarity between generations‘. I immediatly pictched this finished project and they took it to illustrate the theme starting on May 2012 at the European Commission building in Brussels.

So now, everybody can ‚walk‘ along the two lifeline 100 meters long. This is a perfect conclusion for this project. But I hope to exhibit it elswhere.